Shenmue time

Will be kinda focusing on the monumental release of shenmue coming in a mere 6 days time. I will play through both games, find all hidden stuff I missed in my initial play through and such and what not then purchase and play shenmue 3 deluxe edition.

As for who I am in relation to shenmue. I was there when it came out, I still have the dream cast that I played it on. Yes, I know I'm an old ass man 33 years old and 1999 was a million years ago. I get it...

But yeah I can give you a history lesson on that year, how we all felt playing shenmue, having no clue of the absolute bomb that was going to drop in the wake of shenmue's proof that games like that could be made.

It's a full article you could write about the first few steps in gaming towards the open map go anywhere, total immersion idea. Shenmue was truly the first to try it.

To get the sequel at all was a dream us fans had and it's finally here, the story, the legend continues. I can only hope they will do a lot of things with shenmue now that there's a door opening up again to getting it back on track to becoming a true franchise that it deserved to be.

So what was going on in my head when shenmue dropped and I rented it at blockbuster for my dreamcast since gamestop and Adam Sessler and Kate Botello made a big deal about it so I said ok I better take a look at this thing...

Well I remember playing sonic on my dream cast and then I tried a few others specifically crazy taxi and I believe I might have had tony hawk 2, but the game that I was into most was Spawn and the demon's hand, to play a spawn game that good was just bliss. I was all about that game. Still am, still want to finish it.

The thing you have to understand is that shenmue is really at its root a multitude of games simply put into an open map you can wander around in. We've had rpgs, fighting games, driving games, asian cinema inspired games. Shenmue finally was the time when all of these were combined. And it came out at a time when asian cinema was starting to really get popular. I grew up watching asian stuff here and there if it ever happened to air on tv, I looked forward to laundry day as a kid since they seemed to always show asian kung fu flicks on sunday afternoon so that was when I got to see those jet li movies etc. and did my laundry while watching that.

Ah ha, but you couldn't play it. The only kung fu ninja game was tenchu stealth assassins, other than that, which was a revolutionary game in itself, not much besides fighting games like mortal kombat.
So when shenmue dropped it really was all by itself. There was no yakuza series, sleeping dogs, none of the copy cats that came after.

It's basically what I think we all wanted as fighting game fans, a game where you'd play street fighter as ryu and fight then go train for a while then go walk around etc. Not just fight fight fight, but other stuff... and it catered to that. And it was at the right time when kung fu cinema was popular. The game did well, but unfortunately it was released on a sinking ship. Sega spent too much money and just didn't in my opinion dedicate time to online play like they should have. I mean I think the true demise of the dreamcast came when the Ps2 prettymuch future proofed itself with an ethernet port built in. Other than that, the dreamcast wasn't some punk system, it should have lasted way longer and we should have gotten a dreamcast 2 but sega spent too much on things and had no choice but to bow out...

So about the open map idea. Rpgs kinda have been doing that for a while. I never thought of that as particularly revolutionary. Play some old ass rpg and there it is, a game where you can go anywhere, the idea isn't new. And I did glance some kinda text based choose your adventure games on commodore 64 when me and my sister used to try those games out. So again not new the concept of diverging storylines based on your choices. But none of this was ever done in a full 3d environment despite us having the tech to do it for some time. Only one I can sort of think of is Mario 64. In some ways Mario 64 is the precursor to what shenmue would eventually get right. Yes indeed the time when I could finally just walk around and do nothing in a mario game, have freedom, that was pretty huge leap in gaming too.

Shenmue took it to a new level. Total immersion type of thing and I do understand some don't like the game, consider it too slow, too boring, and repetitive especially the jobs and races etc. I can only tell those who think that way, do you actually have a job? Shenmue was just being realistic about it...jobs are boring and repetitive. Yes that's what the developer wanted to do, make you feel like you had to go do a boring job, make you feel what Ryo was feeling... Susuki is no idiot.

I do agree that the QTE is silly though and sadly lead to a lot of dumbing down of the button combo system in many games after. Since shenmue did it, other games thought stupidly that they needed QTE too, but that's not gaming, that's guitar hero or some stupidness like that. I'd like to have to develop some skill rather than quick repetitive reflexes instead. Other than that I can't agree with any complaints towards the series. It's tough, it's brutal, old school no punks, man up and get good gaming like I had as a kid before we all got these soft wimpy bitch games today.

Gaming's gone to hell, that's why we are excited a real game maker from the gritty tough old days is coming back. You'll see, people will flock to a game that doesn't treat you like you're a 5 year old and of course we've all been waiting for the next chapter in the story. It's an old story though so I don't know how it's going to hold up this many years later. That's the only thing that concerns me, we've gotten so many new things since shenmue did its thing, games that allow us to have full online open world adventures, more modern stories about today's world and tech like that one about hacking phones or something to solve crimes. All I'm saying is that gaming has changed, I mean essentially we have swimming and stuff in games vs the days of shenmue when you couldn't hope to do that, destructable environments, drivable cars, aircraft, millions of options now. Will people want to sit and play a more old school traditional dreamcast style play by yourself single player game. I know I can, but today's punks out there, I don't know... They're missing out if they don't that's fo sho.